Morning journal and courier., 1887-04-18

first months rent for this house of ours just four months ago. We staked our all on 8 desperate chance, and the longer we looked at it the more certain appeared the prospect of our loss.
 ''It was woman of whom we hired the place, and she put the figures as low as she could afford, and promised us consideration in any difficulty so long as there seemed a chance of our final success. There wasn't money enough left to furnish very extensive ly, but we got together the needfuls for the kitchen and the dining room and put up as many beds our last lingering dollars would buy. The girls who had promised to board with us were eager to come, and most of them had womens knickknacks of one sort or another-tables or chairs, or pictures or
 bits of fancy work-that frightened up the
 bare place wonderfully and made it look from the first week almost like a home. It
 was because it felt like home that we did
 not fail There were fifty of us the day the house opened, and the dining-room and the
 big sitting-room and the hallway opened
 running over with flock of delighted chill
 dren. To have house to themselves where
 they could do as they pleased was luxury
 that went to their heads. They ran up stairs
 and down stairs, and the homelier a nook or
 corner was the better they liked it. 1t was
 camping out frolic and picnics were rare
 enough with them all. They laughed be-
 cause forgot towels in ordering the linen,
 ana they lauRQeQ when Ln6 mllkHan went
 by without leaving the milk. They sat up
 till past midnight sewing the long seams of
 the sheets. They unpacked their trunks and
 settled the furniture and hustled about in
 that first week of confusion in the firm con-
 viction that the whole experiment was the
 most delightful of jokes that had ever ex-
 ploded in their prosaic lives.
 Nothing discouraged them and nothing daunted them. No matter what went wrong they were determined to be pleased and to find ln every mishap only the material for jest. put the board as low as I dared after l had calculated the rent and the coal, the gas and the table bills. I left the store of course and my sisters did the same. The three of us undertook to manage the house, and once things got in running order we found no great difficulty with the scheme. I interviewed the grocer and the butcher and the fish dealer and have been experimenting from the start with simple meals of whole some variety and material. Seventy board CTS was the utmost number we had room to accommodate, and seventy boarders were on our list before the first three weeks had gone by. When the first month of our experi- ment was over we had money in hand for a 1 second months rent and more in our pockets l than if we had stayed in the store. After l looking at our four weeks balance sheet I l put aside the last thought of disaster to my plan. It would work; it was working, and patience and good health could not help car rying it forward without fail.''
 The building in which this cheerful para graph of the citys history is being written is double brick house, abounding in a multi plicity of small rooms, in quiet by street. It is not over furnished, but it never groans l at sewing machine nor frowns at a canary bird, nor tangles woman in rules and regu lations till she struggles for fresh air. It has reading room and germ of library, and it supplies home comforts and home rest I at charge not exceeding from three to four l and half dollars per week. The latest pro- ject now under discussion is to put the work ing girls enterprise on more permanent and | substantial basis by making of the whole in- stitution cooperative scheme Low priced shares of q few dollars each will be bought by the women out of their savings, and if it seems expedient fund will be established for the purchase of the house.